A Man with Jug and Pipe (Taste)

Also from the Prague National Gallery and dated 1650, this companion panel representing Taste through the figure of a man with jug and pipe combines two sensory experiences in a single image — the taste of drink and the taste and smell of tobacco — in a pairing that was thoroughly Dutch in its cultural specificity. Pipe-smoking had become, by mid-century, a universal habit across Dutch social classes, and the combination of drinking and smoking was so characteristic of inn and domestic sociability that it functioned almost as a cultural emblem. Van Ostade's treatment of the subject in the Prague Senses group demonstrates his ability to pack allegory and social observation into a single, economical small-format panel without forcing either into the other's service.

The clay pipe and ceramic jug are treated as still-life elements within the genre composition, their specific material qualities — the pipe's white clay stem, the jug's glazed earthenware surface — painted with the same attentiveness Van Ostade brings to faces and hands. The warm interior light is consistent with the Prague Senses group as a whole.